Catalogue

Interdisciplinary Study of Religions

religion.bard.edu

Faculty

Dominique Townsend (director), Karen Barkey, Bevin Blaber, Joshua Boettiger, Joshua Calvo, Bruce Chilton, Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed, Nabanjan Maitra, Shai Secunda

Overview

At Bard, the study of religion is undertaken as an interdisciplinary examination of various ways in which religion operates in and affects life. Courses in the program approach religion through multiple questions and perspectives, including the study of scripture, the performance of religion in everyday life, intersections of religion and politics, religion and material culture, and the evolution of concepts like tradition, modernity, and secularism. Moderation in religion equips students in the key methods and approaches in the humanities and social sciences while also familiarizing them with central doctrines, practices, and narratives of major religious traditions.

Requirements

Prior to Moderation, a student should have pursued three elective courses in the Interdisciplinary Study of Religions, and three after that. Among those electives, at least three traditions among the five that are regularly represented should ideally be addressed. After Moderation, the theoretical course entitled Imagining Religion (Religion 317) is required of juniors.

Students are also encouraged to study a language relevant to the particular religion or area of study that provides the focus for their Senior Project. Relevant languages taught at Bard include Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, and Latin.

The Senior Project in the Interdisciplinary Study of Religions Program will be the culmination of the student’s investigation of religion at Bard and should reflect a sustained analysis of a carefully defined topic in the critical study of religion..

Recent Senior Projects in Religion

• “From Swiffers to Swastikas: How the #tradwife Movement of Conventional Gender Roles Became Synonymous with White Supremacy” 
• “Religious Rights of Parents and Children in the U.S. Foster Care System” 
• “Rewriting the Haggadah: Judaism for Those Who Hold Food Close”
• “There’s an App for That: Headspace, Meditation, and the Shifting Religious Landscape of a Digital World”

Courses

Buddhism
Religion 103
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES
For more than 2,500 years Buddhist thought and practice have revolved around the problem of suffering and the possibility of liberation. Across diverse cultural landscapes, Buddhism comprises a wide array of philosophical perspectives, ethical values, social hierarchies, and ritual technologies. This course offers an introduction to Buddhism’s foundational themes, practices, and worldviews within the framework of religious studies.

Judaism
Religion 104
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, MES
For millennia, Jewish communities have flourished around the globe and a dizzying variety of Jewish traditions have developed in these different places and during different times. This course introduces foundational practices, ideas, and expressions of Judaism while grappling both with its inner diversity and its sense of dissimilarity from surrounding non-Jewish communities. The course considers the history of rabbinic Judaism in ancient and medieval times, Hassidism, the Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment), modern European and American denominations, Zionism, and contemporary “cultural” Judaism.

Islam
Religion 106
CROSS-LISTED: GIS, MES
The course explores Islam as a religious, cultural, and social phenomenon that encompasses a wide variety of beliefs and practices. It begins with the origins of Islam in pre-Islamic Arabia and the historical formation of Islam with Muhammad, the Qur’an, and a community of believers. Also explored is the import of the revelatory text and sayings of the prophet (hadith) for subsequent theological, philosophical, legal, and mystical traditions within Islam; Islamic visual art and architecture, poetry, and music; and women in Islam.

Religions of the World
Religion 108
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, THEOLOGY
This course looks at the major religions of the world as they developed over the course of history, utilizing comparative and historic approaches. The class considers the formative ideas and practices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and explores some of the roles religious ideas and institutions have played in political power struggles from the time of Alexander the Great to the present.

The First Bible
Religion 111
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, THEOLOGY
Students consider the text, meaning, historical background, and ancient Near Eastern literary and cultural context of the Hebrew Bible. The course examines the interplay between history and myth, various forms and purposes of biblical law, the phenomenon of biblical prophecy, and the diverse literary genres that are found within the Bible.

Hindu Religious Traditions 
Religion 117
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES 
This course investigates a series of religious movements in India, past and present, which have been collectively labeled “Hinduism.” Students analyze the roles, myths, and symbolism of Hindu deities in both classical literary texts and visual art, as well as foundational concepts from the Vedas (karma, jnana), epic literature (Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita), devotional songs and poetry of the medieval bhakti saints, and the role of Hinduism in Indian politics. The class also considers ethnographic accounts of how Hinduism is lived in India and the United States today.

Introduction to Christianity
Religion 118
CROSS-LISTED: THEOLOGY
The purpose of this seminar is to enable us to understand how Christianity developed through systemic changes, and to read selected authors against the background of that evolution.

Jewish Thought and Practice
Religion 128
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES
This course uses the study of Jewish ritual practice as a lens through which to examine the diverse and complex system of belief and thought that is at the heart of Judaism. Through close reading of both biblical and rabbinic texts, the class pays special attention to how the rabbinic revolution following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE altered the way of life that seems to be portrayed in the Hebrew Bible.

Asian Humanities Seminar
Religion 209
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES
A survey of canonical philosophical, religious, and literary texts from China, India, Tibet, and Japan from the fourth century b.c.e. to the 18th century. Across this reach of time and space, the course explores how these works formulate conceptions of self, society, and the good life. By focusing on Asian traditions, students develop an understanding of the diversity of world thought and literature.

The New Testament in Contexts
Religion 154
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, THEOLOGY
The New Testament emerged within the setting of Judaism during the first century. This course investigates the literary, social, religious, and theological contexts in which Jesus’s movement arose and then produced an innovative literature all its own.

Digital Dharma: Buddhism and New Media
Religion 211
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, EXPERIMENTAL HUMANITIES, GIS
Many high-profile figures associated with world religions, such as the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis, have adopted social media to communicate with followers. In the Buddhist world, teachers use digital technologies to disseminate Buddhist texts, practical and ethical instructions, and iconic Buddhist imagery to students across the globe. How have digital technologies reshaped how Buddhist teachers instruct students and attract new disciples, and what are the social and political risks and benefits of digital expressions of Buddhism? 

Jewish Mysticism
Religion 216
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, THEOLOGY
Where is God? What is love? What is evil? These are questions that have preoccupied the Jewish mystical tradition, beginning with its late antique visionary origins and continuing with the poetic meditations of the Zohar, systematic speculations of Lurianic Kabbalah, and the heretical ecstasies of false messiahs, the Hassidic movement, and intersections with New Age. Readings from primary texts (in translation), secondary works of scholarship, especially by Gershom Scholem, and important tertiary texts, such as the correspon­dence between Scholem and Hannah Arendt.

Goddess Traditions in South Asia
Religion 220 
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, GSS
Goddesses have been a defining feature of South Asian religious traditions for more than two millennia. This writing-intensive course explores the role of female deities in shaping the religious beliefs and practices of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. The class investigates scriptures, scholarship, visual culture, and ethnographic evidence in order to better understand how and why devotees revere the divine feminine, in a variety of contexts, from before the Common Era to today. Prerequisite: one course incorporating religions of Asia or permission of the instructor.

Zoroastrianism
Religion 227
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, MES, THEOLOGY
This multifaceted course examines the literature, history, ritual, myth, theology, and identity of the Iranian religion Zoroastrianism—a dynamic tradition that intersected with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as with political entities including the Sasanian, Roman, and Abbasid Empires, and British colonialism. The primary focus is on ancient Zoroastrianism and the classical textual tradition, especially the Avesta and Middle Persian literature. Zoroastrianism in colonial India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and across the diaspora is also explored.

Devotion and Poetry in India
Religion 228
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES
Bhakti means “participation in” or “devotion to” God. From 700 CE to 1700 CE, bhakti poet-saints sang songs and lived lives of intense, emotional devotion to their chosen gods. The songs, legends, and theologies of these saints and the communities they established permeate the religious life of India. This course explores the world of bhakti through its poetry. Topics include bhakti and gender, the interactions of Hindu devotionalism and Islamic Sufism, and the problem of bhakti in 20th-century Indian literature.

Religion and Culture in Iran
Religion 230
CROSS-LISTED: MES
Students read primary and secondary materials as they examine the Persian tradition within literary, political, social, economic, and interrelated modes. Representations of Iran in film are also critiqued within a broader conversation about media representations of the Iranian people.

Jewish Textualities: Conceiving the Jewish Bookshelf
Religion 231
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, LITERATURE
Since the Middle Ages, Jews have been known as a people of the book, though what that means depends on period, place, and perspective. Jews have produced an impressive variety of texts, many of which defy modern literary categorization. This course introduces 21 enduring Jewish “books,” spanning from antiquity to the present and including biblical works, classic rabbinic texts, mystical tracts, philosophical writings, Hassidic tales, memoirs, novels, and works of poetry. 

Introduction to Christianity in Revolutions
Religion 232
DESIGNATED: COURAGE TO BE SEMINAR
Christianity has both promoted and resisted revolutions during the course of its history. This course seeks to understand why and how that process has unfolded. The method of the seminar is to understand how Christianity developed through systemic changes and to read selected authors against the background of that evolution. Students are required to attend three lectures in the Arendt Center’s Courage to Be Lecture Series.

Contemporary Islam
Religion 237
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, HUMAN RIGHTS, MES
This course examines how Muslims have shaped and reacted to contemporary global experience. Various modalities of Muslim life are explored, including intellectual and political reactions to modernity, war, and empire; and aesthetic production in the fields of literature, film, and music. Students interrogate the ways that traditional practices of or related to Islam have confronted or accommodated contemporary trends around issues of justice, gender, freedom, and equality.

Hinduism in the Epics
Religion 242
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, CLASSICAL STUDIES
The Indian epics have long been one of the major ways that the teachings of the Hindu tradition are transmitted. Students read the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavad Gita) and the Ramayana, with a view to the role of the epics in Hindu ritual and devotional life. In addition, the course examines the various ways these texts have been retold and performed.

Yogis, Monks, and Dharma Kings: Religious Cultures of Classical India
Religion 244
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, CLASSICAL STUDIES
Mahatma Gandhi spoke of early India as the “nursery of religions.” Certainly the millennium of classical India (500 bce to 500 ce) was a time of intense religious innovation during which Buddhism and Jainism were established and the older Vedic order was transformed into Hinduism. Religious seekers pioneered the spiritual techniques now practiced in the United States, after considerable alteration, such as yoga, meditation, and mindful­ness. Texts include Buddhist sutras, Vedic Upanishads, the edicts of Emperor Ashoka, and Hindu epic poetry; archaeological remains are also studied.

Women and Religion in Classical Judaism 
Religion 256
CROSS-LISTED: GSS, JEWISH STUDIES, MES
An examination of the religious life of Jewish women in Palestine and Mesopotamia during late antiquity, Judaism’s formative period. The class grapples with the methodological challenges involved in reconstructing female religious experience in a patriarchal society from which little material or literary culture produced by women has survived. Readings (in translation) from the Talmud, Hebrew liturgical poetry, synagogue inscriptions and art, Greek writers like Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, and more.

Reckoning with the Holocaust 
Religion 260
CROSS-LISTED: HUMAN RIGHTS, JEWISH STUDIES, PHILOSOPHY
How might the Holocaust complicate notions of history, testimony, and representation? What kinds of ethical, theological, and philosophical traditions might the Holocaust call into question? This course grapples with these questions through careful examination of memoir, philosophy, theology, poetry, art, and literature—paying particular attention to works by Jewish thinkers and artists—while considering historical shifts in scholarship about the Holocaust and asking what is at stake in studying the Holocaust today.

Philosophies of the Islamic World
Religion 278
CROSS-LISTED: MES, PHILOSOPHY
An overview of the classical philosophical movement (al-falsafa) born in the medieval Islamic world and engaged by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. The course also considers mystical elements of classical philosophical texts and their impact on the development of philosophical mysticism; cross-fertilizations between philosophy (falsafa) and theology (kalam) in the Islamic and Jewish traditions within the Islamic empire; and ways in which modern Muslim thinkers engaged the medieval philosophical traditions in their responses to imperialism and calls for reform.

Death and the Afterlife in Islam
Religion 289
CROSS-LISTED: MES
The course examines understandings of death and the afterlife in Islam through multiple lenses, including the popular, elite, and esoteric. Students read philosophical texts that describe a neoplatonic vision of the afterlife of the human soul; classical theological texts that theorize about the nature of the human person and of his/her resurrection; and Sufi portrayals of the ascent of the soul to God. Also discussed are eschatological visions as portrayed in art and literature, and beliefs in, and appeals to, spirits of the dead. 

Race and Religion
Religion 291
CROSS-LISTED: GIS, HUMAN RIGHTS
DESIGNATED: HSI COURSE
An examination of the concept of race as it is formed by, and informs, religious difference, and how religion may serve as a tool to process and cope with racialized othering. The course begins with a grounding in the ways in which race has been (and continues to be) mobilized in systems of property, power, and control. Examples include religious racism in medieval Spain, the colonization of the Americas and the use of Christianity as a civilizing force, and modern articulations of white supremacy and anti-Semitism grounded in religious rhetoric.

Hebrew Exegesis
Religion 293
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES
A seminar for translating and interpreting biblical passages for students with a working knowledge of the Hebrew language.

Women in Islam
Religion 294
CROSS-LISTED: GIS, GSS, MEDIEVAL STUDIES, MES
How have Muslim women interacted with their religion throughout the ages? How have they contributed to the development of Islamic thought, art, and religious practice? And how have the lives of women of various classes and contexts been impacted by normative religious discourse? This course focuses on the ways that women have both been impacted by, and been active formers of, Islamic thought, practice, and ethics.

Hebrew Hip: Jewish Tradition and Israeli Popular Culture
Religion 295
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, MES
Popular culture in Israel did not, in the early decades of its existence, draw much from Jewish tradition. Film and music were primarily seen as sites for shaping nascent Israeli society, which had been designed by secular Zionists. The trend has shifted in recent years, giving way to a synergy between classical Jewish sources and “hip” forms of culture from rock music to television. The course explores the relationships between religion and state and Judaism and “Israeliness” as they play out in Israeli popular culture. 

Yoga Philosophy
Religion 296
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES, PHILOSOPHY
Yoga has become embedded in American culture as a physical exercise to gain strength, mental agility, and holistic wellness. How did this Westernized, mindfulness-based practice emerge from ancient Indian religions? The course explores this question, tracing the philosophical underpinnings and historical developments that have led to modern yoga. Sources include the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, three major yogas of the Bhagavad Gita, and tantric yoga treatises of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Qu’ran
Religion 2971
CROSS-LISTED: MEDIEVAL STUDIES, MES
The Qur’an, the holy book of Islam understood to be the revealed word of God, has influenced every aspect of cultural and intellectual production in the Islamic world. A serious understanding of the rich traditions of Islam begins, therefore, with a grounding in this sacred aural-literary text whose beauty is believed to be the miracle of the Prophet Muhammad. This course introduces the structure and content of the Qur’an, its intertextual relationship with other religious traditions, and the many ways it has been interpreted historically by Muslims (including theologians, philosophers, Sufis, and modern feminist thinkers). 

Sharing the Sacred: Space, Narratives, and Pilgrimages
Religion 298
CROSS-LISTED: SOCIOLOGY
This seminar explores the religious, sociological, historical, and political conditions that make the sharing of sacred sites possible. Conversely, what factors foreclose the possibilities of peaceful coexistence among different religious groups? Through historical materials, visual media and narrative accounts, the class considers pilgrimages to shared sites as well as the narratives, rituals, and objects that circulate across these spaces. 

Visual Religion: Vision, Icon, Temple
Religion 316
In many religious traditions, gods and goddesses are visible beings who present themselves to their devotees in visions, icons, and grand image-filled temples. Other traditions consider the embodi­ment of God in material form as a sacrilege. This course examines the practices, issues, and debates surrounding divine icons and the religious arts in a comparative perspective, from the earliest recorded image practices of ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary icons, posters, and visual rituals in Hinduism and Catholicism.

Imagining Religion 
Religion 317
The course pays close attention to the motivating questions, key categories, and interpretive methods scholars employ in researching and writing about the study of religion. Texts focus on various religious traditions and demonstrate an array of interdisciplinary methodologies—literary, historical, anthropological, cultural, gender, and political. Designed for moderated majors, but open to all students.

Buddhist Currents in American Poetry
Religion 319 
CROSS-LISTED: AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES, ASIAN STUDIES, LITERATURE
Since at least the 1950s, many American poets have engaged with Buddhist philosophies and practices, as their poems reflect both implicitly and explicitly. In this seminar, students read and discuss the writing of poets who have grappled with Buddhist ideas and learned from Buddhist teachers, texts, and places. Concurrently, they read examples of primary sources (in translation) from Buddhist traditions that shaped American poets, considering the dynamics of translation, appropriation, and naturalization.

The River and the Desert in Writing and the Religious Imagination
Religion 328
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, MES, WRITTEN ARTS
This course, taught in collaboration with Israel’s Ben Gurion University, spans two distinct sites that have loomed large in the religious imaginary—the river and the desert. Readings include river and desert writings in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish sources, as well as desert texts in Beduin poetry and river texts in Native American traditions. A series of videoconferences takes place between the Bard and Ben Gurion participants; the Ben Gurion class is also slated to visit Annandale for a few days of intensive writing and workshopping.

How We Write about Death and Dying
Religion 335
DESIGNATED: JEWISH STUDIES, MES
Even more than the Bible, the Talmud has traditionally been the nerve center of the classical Jewish canon. While the Talmud was composed during a specific period (third to seventh century) and place (Sasanian Mesopotamia), it has been read in many contexts since, from Baghdad to Bard. Often classified as a work of law, it is perhaps best described based on what it does: unrelenting interpretive and intertextual weaving. This course tackles the Talmud and Talmudic process through close readings of sample passages (in translation).

Sufism
Religion 336
CROSS-LISTED: MES
This course examines the mystical tradition of Islam, Sufism. Topics covered include Sufism and Orientalism, the history of Sufism, Sufi textual traditions, Sufi orders and the master-disciple relationship, gender and Sufism, and Sufism and modernity. Readings in translation.

Contemporary Talmud: History, Context, Culture
Religion 340
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, MES
Even more than the Bible, the Talmud has traditionally been the nerve center of the classical Jewish canon. While the Talmud was composed during a specific period (third to seventh century) and place (Sasanian Mesopotamia), it has been read in many contexts since, from Baghdad to Bard. Often classified as a work of law, it is perhaps best described based on what it does: unrelenting interpretive and intertextual weaving. This course tackles the Talmud and Talmudic process through close readings of sample passages (in translation).

The Multimedia Public Bible
Religion 357
CROSS-LISTED: THEOLOGY
DESIGNATED: CALDERWOOD SEMINAR
The Bible features in American society not only as a group of texts, but also as the focus for art and art history, literature, music, politics, and religion. This seminar considers how the texts are taken up into exchanges in these and other media. By the end of the course, each student should have the tools and contacts available to contribute productively to an issue of increasing concern: the place of the Bible in American aesthetic, intellectual, and social relations.

Subversive Rabbinic Stories
Religion 359
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, LITERATURE, MES
Mercurial, creative, irreverent and romantic, the Talmudic tale never ceases to amaze, baffle, and inspire modern readers. This course explores some of the major anthems of Aggadah (Talmudic narrative) as well as a few lesser-known ones. The unique artistry of Talmudic narrative is used as a trigger to explore our own notions of narrative and as a source of inspiration for our own writing. No previous knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, or Jewish text is necessary.

Religion Colloquium
This colloquium, open to all students but required of religion moderands, fosters a community of scholarship among students and faculty interested in the study of religion and features public presentations of independent research. It is designed to encourage interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives on topics of interest.